There and Back Again
by Quillsandbolts
Summary: A vanquish gone awry sends the sisters to the past – Paige to the day of Shax’s attack, Phoebe to Cole’s days in the Thorn, Piper to WWII where she meets a certain medic. Faced with moral dilemmas, will they save a life, if it means changing the future?


**T . h . e . r . e . . a . n . d . . B . a . c . k . . A . g . a . i . n .**

**Disclaimer**: The disclaimer saying that I don't own Charmed was stolen by a purple dinosaur

**Rating**: T for language.

**Summary**: A vanquish gone awry sends the sisters to the past – Paige to the day of Shax's attack, Phoebe to Cole's days in the Thorn, Piper to WWII where she meets a certain medic. Faced with moral dilemmas, will they save a life, if it means changing the future?

**Author's Note**: This is my first Charmed story in a while, since a few small projects I couldn't get motivated on. I really have a lot of hope for this story though. If you do too, add to your favorites and especially, review with anything – comments, flames, suggestions, ideas, critiques. I won't make it a secret: reviews are the oil that will keep this story driving.

She lay in bed, crying. It wasn't right, she protested, it wasn't fair. Why was everything about her so wrong? Rosa's hair was straight and thin and she wore it in pigtails like she'd done since she was four. "It suits you," insisted her mother, but Rosa knew it wasn't true. She was an ugly nothing fourth-grader who would never be good at anything besides peeling potatoes and doing long division.

And people like Emily Williams were so perfect. She wanted to be more like lovely Emily Williams. Everyone loved Emily because she had bright green eyes and red freckles that made boys want to kiss her on the cheek during recess and pick her when they played kickball even though she couldn't catch. Everyone liked Emily because she had fat blonde curls and when she flipped them _just so_, teachers said nice things about her at conferences and gave her gold stars. How Rosa wanted to be like Emily.

"Rosa?" A voice carried up the stairs. It was her mother. "Are you asleep yet?"

Obviously _not_, mother, she wanted to say, but if she was cheeky, she would have to scrub the bathroom. So she said nothing and instead, quietly pulled off the hand-me-down plaid comforter. Bare feet touched the carpet as she trudged over to the window. Looking about in the sky, searching for angels and finding none, she began to wish on the stars. She wanted to be French instead of Mexican; she wanted to have cool Valentines Day cards every year instead of hand-made ones; she wanted Zachary Lancaster to ask her to his birthday party.

"Please," she prayed, her hands so firmly clasped in each other that her knuckles were white, "give me a sign."

Somewhere across the horizon came a violent flash. Rosa breathed sharply, searching for a flying sphere of stardust and wishes, sparkling across the clear night. Instead, she saw a ball of burning, smoking gas that streaked over the moon, slammed into her window, shattered the glass, and incinerated her instantly.

* * *

Phoebe stole a glance over her shoulder as she sprinted, catching a glimpse of fire from the demon. The fireball quickly halved the distance between itself and Phoebe in two seconds. She put her hands over her face, tucked herself together, and dove. She hit the concrete and rolled. A second later, she dared to lift her face. The green, debilitated dumpster in front of her was crushed inward and partially pushed through the brick wall behind it. 

She knew she couldn't keep running and she knew the demon was approaching. She pulled herself up, touching the skinned parts of her arm tenderly, and prepared for a confrontation. The demon's hands glowed red; a swirl of glittering energy came flying towards her. Phoebe reacted on instinct again, pushing herself against the alley wall. The already-damaged dumpster erupted in flames. Charred plastic oozed onto the cement.

The demon clenched his fist to create another blast of energy, but Phoebe delivered a swift kick to his jaw and, preserving her momentum, landed a stunning punch on his nose. She drew an athame from her pocket. He swore loudly and vanished with a hand applying pressure to his profusely bleeding nose.

Phoebe had barely moved before she felt a violent grip on her arms; they were suddenly pulled behind her back. Phoebe struggled to move, but the demon held her tightly. The athame slipped from her fingers.

"Horrid bitch," he growled..

"Damn, I mangled your nose pretty bad, didn't I?" commented Phoebe. "I think red is your color."

He squeezed her body even tighter; she felt as though her body might crack.

"Hey bastard," called a voice by the dumpster. Blue and white orbs dissipated to reveal Paige and Piper. Before the demon could even register their appearance, Piper threw her hands forward.

An explosion opened up on his chest and stomach; his grip loosened, in one fluid motion, Phoebe flipped him over and scooped up her athame. She plunged it through the empty space between his arms, right into the cement. The flesh blown away by Piper's power reconstituted around the athame. The demon began to cough up blood. The athame was stabbed through his chest.

"Phoebe, come on," urged Paige, holding a piece of ripped notebook paper. "We got the spell." The demon grabbed Phoebe's ankle but she responded with a vehement kick to the side of the face; he groaned loudly. She ran to her sisters' side and they began to chant.

_"Tendrils of fire and flashes of light;_

_Your evil to disappear, we compel"_

Piper was suddenly lifted off her feet by a fireball. She flew like a rag doll, landing in the burning dumpster. Phoebe gasped; Paige immediately dematerialized to the side of the dumpster.

The demon shimmered, appearing behind Phoebe. "I'm not falling for that again," she mumbled hastily, separating her arms before he could grab her. He formed a fireball in his hand, but Phoebe grabbed his arm and forced it into his own face. Screaming, he started backing away.

Piper and Paige appeared at Phoebe's side, Piper looking pissed off. There was blood on her face and holes in her clothing. The demon removed his hand from his charred face, seething with equal rage.

_"Tendrils of fire and flashes of light;_

_Your evil – " _

The demon threw a fireball that Paige deflected without halting the spell.

_" – to disappear, we compel;_

_With – "_

He threw forward both of his palms, sending twin fireballs. Piper gestured, blowing one up. Phoebe focused on the demon's physical pain as she chanted; the fireball extinguished. The air began to tingle with an electric charge.

_" – forces of good and – "_

The demon roared desperately as magical wind picked up in the alleyway. Struck with a sudden inspiration, he lifted his arm –

_" – magic so bright,_

_You are vanquished, now go back – "_

_– _and launched a fireball. The sisters each began to use their respective powers to dispatch it before they realized it wasn't going towards them. It zoomed towards the building's far end, where a wall of windows and balconies stuck out.

"It's an apartment building!" screamed Paige suddenly. She stuck her hand out, screaming, but it was too far away.

In movies, action tends to occur in slow motion, but the subsequent events happened in a blur.

Paige dissolving into a cloud of rapid orbs. A screaming mother. A chunk of shattered glass breaking on the alley beneath the window

Phoebe being abruptly swept off her feet by a fireball that struck her shoulder. Piper darting to the conclusion the spell hadn't been finished and trying frantically to finish it, but a lump in her throat keeping her. The demon's laugh being cut off by hurricane-force winds that filled the alleyway.

Storm clouds, magical chants echoing, another scream, a bead of blood pulled out of Phoebe's shoulder by a vicious gust of air.

The tingling, tingling air, a swirling vortex, a cloud of magical lights sucked into said vortex along with two brunette women and a very perplexed-looking demon.

Silence, a wailing mother, back to hell.


End file.
